Agency Desk FAQ
Start from your situation, not from a topic.
The full Agency Desk FAQ answers more than forty questions in one place. This page is the shortcut: find the moment you are actually in, read a short orientation, and jump straight to the answer that goes deep on it.
Every card below routes somewhere — a section of the main FAQ, a deep-dive page, a partner guide or the application. The orientation is the one-paragraph steer; the link is where the detail lives. If you would rather read the questions the ordinary way, the canonical Agency Desk FAQ stays the single source of truth.
Getting oriented
“I’m not sure where I even sit yet.”
Most wrong turns happen here, before a single order moves. Find which of these is true for you and the rest of the programme falls into place.
Before you have a live account
“I have no clients yet.”
The co-managed and white-label paths assume at least one live client, because that is where the model has actually been tested. With none, the honest route is referral: you introduce a seller, RyanFulfil contracts and supports them, and you earn a commission you name — the quote we issue that seller discloses the partner fee, so nothing is hidden. Win a client of your own and you move up from there.
“I just won my first physical-product client and have never run the China side.”
You do not need a warehouse or a China team. You need a brief a supplier can actually quote from and a delivery promise the route can keep. The sequence you will be sitting behind is the same one direct clients use; the agency version only changes who holds the contract and whose brand is on the front. Walk it before you quote anything.
“I can’t tell which path I’m actually on.”
One question decides it: who holds the client contract. If that is RyanFulfil, it is Refer whatever anyone calls it. If it is you, it is Co-Manage or White Label, separated only by how far we stay behind your desk. Settle that first, because who invoices, who supports and whether we are visible all follow from it.
Mid-project questions
“My client just put me on the spot.”
These arrive in a live conversation, and the confident-sounding answer is usually the one that hurts you later. Here is the safe version and where the exact wording lives.
Answering in the moment
“Who sources this in China?”
You may say fulfilment is operated through your China supply-chain team or network. That is accurate, it sells just as well, and it survives the next question. What ends accounts is the upgrade to “we own a warehouse in China” when you do not — a brand-rules breach that surfaces at exactly the wrong moment, on a chargeback or a customs hold.
What you may and may not claim →
How the sourcing actually runs →
“Can you promise this lands by a date?”
You can quote the estimated transit range for the route, taken from the maintained destination table and kept separate from processing time. What you cannot do is turn that estimate into a promise about one specific parcel — carrier events are the carrier’s truth and no provider rewrites them. Frame the checkout language around the route, not a fixed calendar date.
“I want my own logo on the product and the box.”
That is private label — a physical product change with its own minimum order quantity — and it is separate from the white-label service arrangement on these pages. You can sell branded goods with RyanFulfil named openly, or plain neutral packing under a white-label agreement. They are quoted separately because one is a unit cost and the other is a way of working.
Protecting the relationship
“I’m worried about what handing you the backend costs me.”
This is the real reason agencies hesitate to introduce a fulfilment provider. The controls that answer it are written down in advance, and so is the one limit we will not pretend away.
If you are nervous about losing the account
“I’m worried you’ll take my client.”
On Co-Manage, White Label and Strategic the client you register is recorded as yours, our sales and operations people see that status before any contact, and direct marketing suppresses protected partner clients. The one limit we will not overstate is product exclusivity — anyone can independently ask us to source the same public product — but your client’s identity, your pricing and your research are never reused to build someone else an offer.
The controls and the one honest limit →
Protection at a glance →
“My client contacted RyanFulfil directly.”
We route them back to you. We do not quote around you, and we do not treat the contact as an opening to convert them to a direct account. Contact from our side to your client needs your approval outside defined emergencies such as a safety, compliance or stranded-shipment issue — and those exceptions are written into the partner terms, not decided in the moment.
How contact and non-solicitation work →
The non-solicitation summary →
Fully behind your brand
“I want to run this fully white-label.”
White label here is a tested operating configuration, not a logo switch. Before you promise invisibility to a client, know which touchpoints you can actually control and which you cannot.
Before you promise anything to a client
“I want to be fully white-label.”
Your quotes, reports, packing slips and client conversations carry your brand. But some touchpoints can still identify a China-side shipper — store app or collaborator access, the bank beneficiary and legal entity, carrier tracking and shipment origin, customs paperwork, the return address, and any legally required disclosure. Until we have audited your specific setup, we sell you co-managed operations rather than a claim of invisibility.
“I need to know exactly what my client can still see.”
That is what the visibility audit produces. It walks your real setup one touchpoint at a time — store connection, message senders, the packing slip, carrier and tracking pages, customs documents, return address and how money moves — and hands you two written lists: configured, and still visible. You make promises to your client only from the first list, so what you say stays defensible.
Pricing a client
“I need to put a number in front of a client.”
RyanFulfil quotes its net cost for the product, route and stated assumptions. Everything the client pays, and everything you keep, is your decision on top of that. Here is how to set it without regretting it.
When a quote is due
“I need to quote a client this week.”
You decide what the client pays and you keep the spread over our net quote. Before you send a number, model retainer, per-order and hybrid side by side, because the choice decides whether client support is paid for by the structure or quietly eats a thin per-order margin. Most partners land on the hybrid for exactly that reason.
How to price a client, worked through →
Model it in the margin calculator →
“I don’t know how much commission to add.”
You name your own commission and we add it into the quote. Guidance is 2% — the level that keeps your client’s landed cost competitive against buying direct from AliExpress, the comparison every one of their customers can make in thirty seconds. Set it higher if the relationship supports it, knowing the client carries the difference; on white label the price is entirely yours and we never see it.
“There’s no joining fee — so what do I actually pay?”
Nothing to apply, and nothing to hold partner status: no joining fee, no monthly programme fee, no published minimum order commitment for the founding pilot. The only money that moves is for fulfilment actually performed, and founding-partner terms are confirmed after a fit assessment rather than promised for signing up.
Volume, timing and exceptions
“Something about the calendar or an order is worrying me.”
The predictable failures of a first year are seasonal and operational, not commercial. Plan for these three and most of the surprises never arrive.
When timing decides the outcome
“Peak season or Chinese New Year is coming.”
Factory closures and carrier congestion move the whole timeline, and the only real defence is planning for it rather than absorbing it in February. Pull your delivery-promise language back before the closure, pre-stock demand that is already proven, and tell your client the shifted window before they read it off a tracking page.
Peak-season and CNY planning in the kit →
How estimates and exceptions are set →
“I’m bringing several client stores on at once.”
Several stores run through one partner account, with one point of contact, one invoicing rhythm and client-level and store-level allocation on a single consolidated invoice. That structure exists because one operator needed it first — read what that case did and did not prove before you promise a client any particular onboarding speed.
“An order went wrong and my client is asking.”
You take the first line with the end customer; we investigate on the China and carrier side and return the evidence in a form you can put in front of them. A person on China hours reads the partner channel — first reply has been measured at a 23-minute median, with the honest caveat that about one in five in-hours messages still take more than half a day, and that a first reply is not a resolved problem.
How issues and response targets work →
Order-issue guidance → · tracking meanings →
The canonical FAQ
Would rather browse the full FAQ the usual way?
Every detailed answer lives on the flagship Agency Desk page, grouped into four topic clusters. This is the map into it — open a cluster to see what it covers, then read the answers in full there.
Four clusters on the main Agency Desk FAQ
The programme
What Agency Desk is, how a dropshipping agent differs from an affiliate, a reseller and a white-label service, who owns and contracts and invoices and prices the client on each path, and what it costs to join. Read this cluster in full →
Visibility and client protection
What your client can see, which technical and legal touchpoints may still show a shipper, whether we contact your client, non-solicitation and NDA cover, and how client data is handled. Read this cluster in full →
Operations
Supported platforms, restricted categories, samples and packaging, how delivery estimates are set, multi-store accounts, and how invoices are separated by client. Read this cluster in full →
Referral, conflicts and endings
How referral commission and payouts work, how duplicate introductions are resolved, why there is no territory exclusivity, and what happens if a client leaves your agency or a partner goes quiet. Read this cluster in full →
Seller-side questions about sourcing, shipping and costs live on the main RyanFulfil FAQ. The measured response time and what it does not cover is at the response-time answer.
Founding partner pilot
Found your situation? The next step is the same for all of them.
Apply with your current services, client count, target markets and expected order volume. We recommend referral, co-managed, white-label or strategic access — and tell you plainly if it is not the right time yet.
This is not a guaranteed-income or business-in-a-box programme. Partners remain responsible for finding and managing their own clients, and for the claims they make to them. We do not guarantee sales, profit, product-market fit or carrier outcomes.